


i've got stars in my beard (and i feel real weird)

by eat_crow



Series: eat_crow's week of self indulgence [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:41:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29003919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eat_crow/pseuds/eat_crow
Summary: There’s something about smoking that makes everythingbetter. Food has more flavor, jokes are funnier, music takes on a completely new sound, and the sex--Goodgod, the sex.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: eat_crow's week of self indulgence [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126211
Comments: 30
Kudos: 120





	i've got stars in my beard (and i feel real weird)

**Author's Note:**

> title track [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPkc5-2McG0) i am once again asking you to listen to t. rex
> 
> this is literally just merlin and arthur smoking weed and having sex and pursuing their munchies, that's it.

The cotton wrinkles in Arthur's fist as he moves his hand up the bed for better balance. Merlin pants into his mouth and he sucks his tongue, feeling every foreign taste bud on the inside of his lips, tasting his spit, and it alone makes his thighs tremble and his thrusts pick up in desperation.

There’s something about smoking that makes everything  _ better _ . Food has more flavor, jokes are funnier, music takes on a completely new sound, and the sex--

Good  _ god _ , the sex.

He hadn’t ever tried to have sex while high before Merlin. He usually prefered to sit back with the first snack in reach and watch romantic comedies until he stopped feeling the weight of his own brain inside his skull. But Merlin swore by it, and so Arthur agreed to at least try, and now they can’t seem to smoke together and keep their hands off one another at the same time. It’s as if he can feel every inch of Merlin against him, inside and out, and time has slowed down enough for him to savor every second of it.

Merlin trails the flat of his hand up Arthur’s back. He buries his fingers in Arthur’s hair, rubs his thumb over Arthur’s scalp. Arthur hums and spreads Merlin’s thighs further apart. Merlin gasps, pulls Arthur’s hair, and rocks his hips against Arthur’s a little more firmly. Arthur answers with a groan and kisses down Merlin’s jaw to his neck.

“I--” Merlin starts, then cuts himself off with a tight moan, pressing his head back against the pillow, “I’m  _ starving _ .”

Arthur giggles into Merlin’s throat, his chest constricting on it’s own and forcing the sound out of him. Merlin laughs until he snorts, which worsens Arthur’s own laughter. Arthur bites Merlin’s collarbone, a rough, playful tease, and Merlin kicks the back of Arthur’s thigh. He’s grinning as he catches his breath.

“I’m fucking you, and that’s what you’re thinking about?” He asks, his own breath labored as he slows, but doesn’t stop, his rhythm. Merlin scrapes his teeth over his lower lip.

“Just-- craving those, the--” he presses a chaste kiss to Arthur’s cheekbone, brushing over his skin over and over as if taking in the feeling of his cheek against his lips-- “you remember the little burger place we,  _ uhn _ , we went to by the beach?” Arthur turns his head and kisses the hollow of his throat, pressing his tongue where he’s started to shine with sweat and licking up to his chin, tasting. Merlin’s eyelashes flutter as his eyes roll back. “They had the--  _ hah! _ \-- the parmesan burgers with the  jalapeño aioli,” he continues. “They were so  _ good _ .” His words devolve into another long moan. Arthur doesn’t know if Merlin is moaning over Arthur or the damn burgers, at first, but then he digs his fingers into Arthur’s shoulder and the corner of his mouth twitches up of its own accord and he breathes  _ yes _ and Arthur knows Merlin really is just in the mood to be chatty.

“They’re closed by now, Merlin,” Arthur says, and also hundreds of miles away, but that’s considerably more besides the point.

“I’m just saying it sounds good,” Merlin answers. He shifts his hips so that Arthur is hitting him at a better angle, and his back arches in a wave that makes his shoulders tense up to his ears. Arthur moans and ducks his head, rutting into Merlin, grinding his hips against Merlin’s ass to chase the pleasant friction on his cock. His breath is trembling and light in his throat.

“Fuck,  _ fuck _ ,” Arthur grunts, trying to stave off his orgasm so he can spend just a little longer on this beautiful edge where everything is tense and throbbing so wonderfully. They're so close that Merlin reaches between them and his knuckles bump Arthur’s stomach as he strokes himself in quick pulls. Merlin drags him up by the hand on his nape. Neither of them can commit to a kiss with their panting and their moaning, but their lips still touch, and it’s like a zip down to his groin that makes his toes curl and his balls tighten and-- his eyes are rolling back as he comes.

“Arthur, oh, god, Arthur--” Merlin replies, pulling in a moan, writhing somewhere between thrusting into his hand and fucking himself on Arthur. His muscles twitch and go taut under Arthur’s hand. His face pinches and then goes blissfully slack. Merlin always likes when Arthur comes inside. Something about it sets him off. 

They lay there breathing hard and light headed until Arthur pulls out. As he does he touches his fingers to where they are joined, where Merlin is stretched around him, because it seems like an entertaining thing to do in the moment. It is. Merlin twitches when he is empty, and Arthur idly rubs his swollen rim. He presses in a single finger and slides past the ring of muscle easily. He watches Merlin’s face as he adds another finger, entranced by the upticks in his eyebrows and the way his jaw works behind his closed lips.

_ I love you, I love you, I love you _ , he thinks, and his chest is so full of affection that it physically, tangibly aches.

  
  


They do end up staggering into the car and going on a run for food, arguing back and forth over where to go as they drive past every restaurant in town. Except it’s one in the morning, and as they bicker over whether or not they want something from those restaurants they all sit currently closed. The only place that’s open is a gas station. They pick up nachos, watching the cheese pour on the chips in a heavenly ribbon of hot orange, and Arthur tosses a bag of tropical skittles on the counter for the sake of it. The cashier gives them a disappointed and knowing look as she counts Arthur’s change.

The two men sit in Arthur’s car. Merlin proudly retrieves a joint from his jacket pocket. Still a little glazed over they light up for a second time and pass the joint back and forth until it’s foggy enough that they have to squint to look out of the windshield. Or maybe they’re just squinting because they’re high.

The nachos are a more pressing matter than that particular question.

They shovel chips into their mouths in dead silence, both completely immersed in the chafe in the corners of their mouths from the whole chips scraping their lips and the salt on the tips of their tongues and the warm, rubbery cheese that leaves a residue on their teeth. The sound of their crunching is actually rather quiet, but deafening inside their heads.

“Life is just so beautiful,” Arthur says, sunken into the driver seat and watching the lone light in the parking lot they stopped in. “I mean… think about how much history is in that light. We tamed fire, and then we made candles, and then we figured out that we could heat up a tiny little piece of metal and it would glow bright enough to light up a whole room. And there are light bulbs all around the world. Isn’t that incredible? There are people in, I don’t know, Bangladesh that have nothing in common with me culturally, but we still have light bulbs in our houses. It really makes you think about how fundamentally connected we are. We’re all just people, Merlin. Just living in the world.”

Merlin slides his tongue over the roof of his mouth. He blinks at the street light.

“I think that’s an LED,” he says. The music on the radio carries on at a volume that is almost too quiet to hear. Arthur watches a curl of smoke go up and spread out over the windshield as he processes what Merlin said.

“What?” He says, after careful deliberation. Merlin points limply to the light and lets his hand drop again.

“LEDs don’t heat up metal filaments,” he says, “they’re a different kind of light.”

“How do they light up, then?”

“I don’t fucking know, it’s just different.” Arthur traces over the plastic container for their nachos and collects leftover cheese on his thumb. He licks it off. He can feel the ridges of his fingerprints.

“Look it up,” he says.

“That’s…” Merlin sighs and leans his head back against the headrest, “too much work.”

  
  


When they return to their apartment they kick off their shoes next to the door and crawl into bed, already in their night clothes. They shuffle next to each other until they’re completely tangled together. Merlin wraps his gangly limbs around him like an octopus - one leg hitched up around Arthur’s waist with his knee touching Arthur’s ribs and his arms wrapped around his shoulders and over his head like a halo - and Arthur presses his face to Merlin’s chest and feels his heart thud in a slow rhythm over his closed eyes.

“I love you,” Merlin whispers into his hair as if it’s a secret.

He gets a tired smile against his skin and a squeeze around his middle that says  _ i love you, too _ in its own right.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this stoned - you can probably tell. i was really thinking about those nachos
> 
> i'm on tumblr @ [sterlingdylan](https://sterlingdylan.tumblr.com/)


End file.
